Golfing on the Roof of the World: In Pursuit of Gross National Happiness

Rick Lipsey, a Sports Illustrated writer and reporter, returned from a vacation with an unusual job offer. After playing a few rounds at Bhutan’s Royal Thimphu Golf Club, one of the members asked if he’d consider becoming the kingdom’s golf pro. “Sure, I’d love to move to Bhutan,” Lipsey flippantly responded. Next thing you know, he, his wife, and their infant daughter are boarding a plane for this remote Himalayan country. With one foot in the ancient world and the other in the twenty-first century, Bhutan is working to successfully meld the old and the new, from subsistence farming and religious festivals to the Internet and World Wrestling Entertainment. In Golfing on the Roof of the World, Rick sets great golf travel writing against the bigger political story of Bhutan’s entrance to the modern world. Not only does he teach and play golf in the shadow of the world’s tallest peaks, but he also comes to understand the seismic shifts in store for the last Buddhist kingdom where peace and spiritual prosperity have abounded, and the national standard for measuring success is Gross National Happiness.